Rémy Couture says only goal was to create ‘a feeling of disgust’

The Crown has attempted to portray Rémy Couture as a purveyor of sadistic pornography that could incite deviants to torture and murder.

But the 35-year-old makeup and special effects artist testified Tuesday the photos and films that led to his arrest on obscenity charges are no different from what is widely available in the genre of “extreme horror” cinema.

Like all horror filmmakers, he said, his goal was to “create a feeling of anxiety, a feeling of disgust” among visitors to his website, where photos and films depicting the torture and dismemberment of women were displayed before his 2009 arrest.

Mr. Couture offered the jury an account of his immersion in the world of gore, which was inspired by films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the more obscure Aftermath, a 30-minute film in which a morgue worker has sex with the body of an accident victim.

He said he progressed from crafting simple scars and burns to moulding protheses of mangled limbs and heads. His work has earned him invitations to horror-film conventions and a music-video shoot in Budapest, where he was profiled in a Hungarian horror magazine and signed autographs for fans.

In addition to the material that led to his arrest, Mr. Couture has been a makeup artist on several feature films shot in Montreal, including Mummy 3, Night at the Museum 2 and Death Race.

Last summer, he said, he worked on an instructional video for the union representing federal prison guards, helping with a scene of a simulated riot in which a guard has his ear ripped off.

His own short films Inner Depravity 1 and 2 and his photo series with such titles as Hook, Necrophile and Burn were meant to serve as a “portfolio” of his talents and at the same time depict the world of a psychopath, he said.

Pressed under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Michel Penneau to explain the sexual content of his work, which depicted acts of necrophilia, Mr. Couture said the sex was always suggested, never explicit.

“I do not make pornography,” he said, adding later, “The goal was not to arouse people. It was simply to create horror.”

The combination of sexual content and brutal violence is at the heart of the case. Mr. Couture is charged with producing, possessing and distributing obscene material.

The Criminal Code defines an obscene publication as one characterized by “the undue exploitation of sex” or a combination of sex with crime, horror, cruelty or violence.

Mr. Penneau noted some visitors to Mr. Couture’s website failed to notice an advisory saying the images were fake and complained. Mr. Couture said he replied by sending them photos of the “making of” his work to put their minds at ease.

In some ways, though, the complaints were the ultimate compliment for someone on a mission to disturb.

“The aim of all makeup artists is to have people believe their work,” Mr. Couture testified.

The final defence witness was Richard Bégin, a film professor at Université de Montréal.

He said Mr. Couture’s photos and films are representative of the genre of film known as gore, or by some torture porn.

‘I do not make pornography. The goal was not to arouse people. It was simply to create horror’

In such films, the acts of violence are not important to the plot but exist simply to disturb the viewer, he said.

To illustrate he offered a condensed lecture in the history of cinema gore, beginning with a scene of a sliced eyeball in 1929’s Un Chien Andalou.

More recent examples were from Cannibal Holocaust, which depicted the sexual mutilation of a man and the rape and murder of a woman. Even 1940s’ images from the Parisian theatre Grand Guignol depicted women being mutilated. One, in which a naked woman is about to have her nipple sliced off, was similar to a scene Mr. Couture created on his website. The jury was also shown a scene from Aftermath depicting the sexual assault of a corpse.

Mr. Bégin testified even if creators of horror employ sexual imagery, they are not pornographers.

“Horror’s aim is to trouble, to disgust,” he said. “Pornography aims to excite and generate desire in the spectator.”